Snapshots
by calgarry
Summary: Snapshots from the life of James Moriarty, cataloguing his journey through life and death. Not a happy story, you have been warned. M for murder/death, child abuse, and other unpleasantries.
1. Chapter 1

The night is darker than usual. Rain is lashing against the windows of the small cottage hospital, dwarfed by the surrounding Irish countryside. All the hospital windows are dark, save for one. And inside the dimly-lit room, a woman lies on the small bed. Her thin cotton gown is soaked with sweat, and her brown hair is fanned out around her pale face. She knows she doesn't have long left, but she is trying to hold on for as long as humanly possible.

In the corner stands a small cot, containing a new-born baby boy. People fuss around the cot, trying to placate him; but he is crying at the top of his little lungs for his mother, his little voice going hoarse. However, his mother is unable to help him, as she is dying.

A car drives up to the hospital, going too fast, driving erratically. It screeches to a stop in front of the hospital and the driver gets out, a small, hunched-over man with a large beard and a red face. He stagers over to the door, and shortly afterwards appears in the door of the dimly-lit room, a bottle dangling loosely from his fingers. He tosses the bottle aside and advances on the bed, nurses standing aside to give him room.

He falls on his knees next to the bed, tears collecting in the corners of his crinkled black eyes. He slowly raises a hand to his wife's shoulder, and her eyes open slowly, filling with joy at the sight of him. She cannot speak, but instead raises her own hand, softly holding his hand to her cheek. She smiles, then raises her gaze to the dirty ceiling, closing her eyes calmly one last time. A single tear traces a path down his cheek as he drops his head to the pillow. The only sound in the room is that of the screaming infant.

After an age, he lifts his head, this time to stare at the cot in the corner with venom. The baby's cries have begun to peter off, and the nurses have left him to his grief. No words are spoken, but the intention of the glare would be apparent to anybody else in the room.

And thus begins the life of one James Scott Moriarty.


	2. Chapter 2

The whole house stinks. Booze, mostly, mixed with the stench of unwashed males and rotting food. It is a small house, and it is old, with thin walls that allow the smell to permeate through the whole dwelling.

Inside, the man sits in what could have once been regarded as a kitchen, but is now a foul junkyard of clutter and despair. He is holding a brown bottle, taking a swig every few seconds. His shoulder-length hair is tangled and greasy, and the clothes on his back have not seen water for days.

The man is still there when night falls, head bowed over the bottle which has become his salvation. After a while, a young boy in thin clothes appears timidly in the doorway, his face pale and his cheeks hollow. His voice is croaky as he tentatively asks, begs, his father for some food. He would be grateful for anything, even a crust of stale bread.

The man slowly lifts his head, and James knows he is in trouble. He wants to back away, but it is too late. Instead, he stands cowering against the doorframe as his father advances on him, menacingly clutching the bottle in his meaty fist. He raises the bottle above his head, and James flinches, then takes flight.

James manages to make it to his bedroom before his father catches up with him. The boy panics, hiding under his bed; but the man reaches under with one burly arm, and drags James out by one ankle. He tries kicking and screaming, but as usual, it makes no difference. All it does is make his father angrier, and he lays into his son with a throaty roar, letting his grief and anger show in the marks he makes on the boy's skin.

Afterwards, James curls up under the thin sheets, his thin frame racked with trembling sobs. He knows it was his own fault that his mother had died. If he hadn't been born, his parents would still be happy together. Yet he still sometimes wishes his father would stop hurting him.


	3. Chapter 3

James has heard of school, of course. He has seen pictures of schools in the books he keeps hidden under his floorboards, and looks at well away from his father's watchful, beady eyes. School is a place where children go to learn things, to prepare them for their future.

However, although James has heard about school, he never once dreamed that it could apply to him. He never thought about his future, or even whether he would have a future. He didn't even like to think about the next day, knowing that it, too, would bring only hurt and hunger.

Imagine his surprise, then, when one day a woman knocks on the door, with a posh hairstyle and a Dublin accent. His father answers the door gruffly, while James hovers at the top of the narrow stairs, spying in the dark without being noticed by either party.

The woman turns her heavily made-up nose up at the smell almost instantly, not entirely succeeding in hiding her disgusted expression. She introduces as being from the local school board, and says that there have been reports of a school-age child living in the house; and that if such as child existed, he should be attending school.

James' father denies having ever had a child. He sends the woman packing, not that she seems too eager to stay. He slams the door behind her, then turns to stare menacingly at the darkness at the top of the stairs.

James gulps and shrinks back into the shadows, hoping against hope that nothing will happen, that his father won't come upstairs. There is a pause, then his father shuffles back to the kitchen, leaving James heaving a silent sigh of relief. He creeps back to his bedroom to puzzle over his father's denial of his existence, and to think some more about the strange lady from Dublin.


	4. Chapter 4

Sometimes, when his father has been particularly cruel, or when he has not eaten for several days, James allows his mind to wander. He knows that he has a good memory, better than people in books, or on the small television that his father watches.

So on these occasions, when the world seems pointless and James feels particularly useless, he will allow his memory to remember the strange woman from Dublin. He remembers what she said, about all children deserving to go to school. And he allows himself the luxury of thinking about how things could be, if he did go to school. He imagines being with other children, learning new things, getting out of the house, away from his father. He knows that this will never be, can never be; yet still he treasures these thoughts as something to hold onto, a glimmer of hope at the end of a long tunnel.

After a few months, James comes up with a plan, the first of many he will make in his lifetime. He thinks back to how the woman from Dublin sounded. In his head, he mimics her speech patterns, her vowel sounds, the way she started and ended her sentences, and so on. He also listens through the door to the dirty living room, to hear the news on the rare occasions that his father can be bothered to boot up the old television and watch.

James listens to these voices, and over time, he begins to adapt these to his own way of talking. Sure enough, after a while, James speaks like someone from the capital rather than a rough country boy. It is then that James decides to put the next stage of his plan into action.

-o0o-

Nobody is around to watch a small boy, thin and weak from malnutrition, climb out the window of a small cottage set deep into the Irish countryside. Nobody sees him stumble off on a long journey towards the city, wearing only a thin T-shirt and shorts that are too small for him, and holding nothing but a small rucksack.

Nobody thinks anything of it when the body of Andrew Moriarty is found, weeks later, having been killed by a cup of poisoned tea. It is assumed that he has killed himself in grief over the death of his wife and new-born son, nine years earlier; it is a common enough occurrence around these parts. After all, who else would have killed him? He had no children, he himself has said many times.


	5. Chapter 5

It is night-time when the car arrives at the home, the headlights illuminating the sharply cut hedges and the carefully-arranged pot plants around the driveway. A woman comes out of the house, wiping her hands on a blue apron, to meet the police officers getting out of the car.

Some brief words are exchanged. Criminal abuse and neglect. Stunted growth. Cigarette burns. Won't say anything except his name. The woman's face grows tighter with every word, occasionally glancing over at the car, at the pale face staring out at her.

Eventually, James is brought out to meet her. He says nothing, staring at her feet. She reaches out to him, but he shies away from her touch. She purses her lips and takes him inside, and gives him a small bowl of thin, hot soup.

It is the first time he has had a hot meal, at least as far as he can remember. He burns his mouth. She notices the way this boy eats, gulping the food down quickly, glancing around him as he does so as if expecting to be stopped at any time. She purses her lips again and shows him to his bedroom.

It is the first time he has slept in a proper bed. It is soft, softer than anything he has felt before. The pillow supports his head, and the blankets keep him warm, rather than shielding against insects and rodents and the wrath of his father. It is a nice feeling.

It is his first time sleeping well. He sleeps through the night, without staying up worrying, or being kept awake by his father. He does not shiver once, and there are no loud noises from downstairs, no banging or crashing or yelling.

The police said that everything would be all right. Here, in this proper bed, having eaten a proper meal; here, James allows himself to think that maybe, just maybe, this will be the start of things being all right.


End file.
